


Children

by Abisian



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Children, Futurefic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-15
Updated: 2013-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-04 16:17:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abisian/pseuds/Abisian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa and Sandor encounter a few challenges when it comes to starting and raising a family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Children

**Author's Note:**

> What I'm writing isn't exactly a story, but each chapter isn't exactly a standalone either. Each chapter has a reference to another, so they probably shouldn't be read separately, but there is no plot line, no specific order to these chapters. I'm writing these to satisfy myself and my desire to explore what Sansa and Sandor's children might be like. There is no definite beginning or ending, should it ever actually have a final chapter. I've planned on what the final two chapters should be like, but the distance between the first and last chapters remains to be seen. For any of you who are reading this waiting for something to happen, for some explosion of plot to occur, then I am sorry to disappoint you. I hope that doesn't deter you from reading any future chapters. Perhaps you'll just be curious enough to see the Cleganes' familial journeys through to the end, whenever that may be.
> 
> With that being said, these chapters are non-linear, but it's fairly easy to tell at what point in their lives these take place. Hopefully it's not too confusing. :)

Sansa padded softly down the corridor, finger curled around the handle of the candle holder. Her hand cupped the flame, face warmed by the glow. Truthfully she didn't even need the candle. She knew these halls like the back of her hand; she'd been traveling this same path night after night since the first of her babes had been weaned off the breast. 

As always, she stopped at the boys' room first. A fire burned low in the grate yet the room was still chilly. The twins were curled up in wolf pelts, heads bowed toward each other. Their masses of auburn-red hair framed their pale faces, tiny hands fisted around the furs and tucked under their chins. Little Ned's feet had kicked themselves free of the furs. Smiling, Sansa bent to pull the pelt back over the boy's little toes before settling down beside him to look over her boys' sleeping faces.

Laboring over the twins had been a far harder ordeal than Sansa had ever imagined. She'd labored for more than a day, drifting in and out with fever and delirium, barely aware of her husband grasping her clammy hand between his own. Many hours later she'd come to and found an emptiness in her belly and a baby boy at her breast. The other boy was in the arms of her husband, gently rocking the infant while pacing to and fro at the foot of her bed. He was smiling down at the child in his arms with such a far-off gaze, a look so tender and private Sansa couldn't bear to watch. Sometimes she still saw the tenderness in him, softening his scarred face as he smiled and laughed and lifted a twin high above his head. She imagined the boys' joyous laughing was just as infectious to him as it was to her.

The boys themselves had her red hair, but their faces were neither Tully nor Stark. Were he not partly disfigured, she could easily see what he'd looked like in his boyhood. When the twins grew into adulthood, she knew that she would see what he would have looked like if not for the fire that had marred him.

Sansa bent to kiss the brow of each of her boys before moving silently from the room. Just down the corridor was her next destination. The little lady's room was messy as usual; dolls had been discarded on the floor where she'd played with them last, and her small wooden sword was peeking out from beneath her bed. The wolf pelts covering the small girl were askew, thrown halfway off the bed in her nighttime tumble through her dreams. The dirty misshapen wolf doll, ever her favorite, was clutched tightly in the crook of her elbow, pulled tight against her body. 

With her free hand, Sansa retrieved the sword and leaned it against the foot of the bed. She then moved to the head of the bed and pressed the back of her hand to the girl's cheek, feeling the warmth. She'd had a cold all week, but Sansa was glad to see the fever had broken.

The boys looked like their father, but the girl was her mother in miniature. She had the blue Tully eyes and auburn-red hair, even the same face shape. While she looked like her mother, however, her personality could not have been more different. Often times Sansa was reminded of Arya when she looked at her young daughter; she preferred playing at swords with her brothers rather than learning needlepoint. 

Her father was undoubtedly very fond of her. He encouraged her swordplay and took her riding often. He called her Little Bird, a name that had been a mockery for Sansa, but had transformed to something sweet. Sansa couldn't help smiling at the memory of their conversation.

"It's musical," he'd told her. "Her happiness, her laughter; it's like birds singing. It's the sweetest sound there is."

A lifetime ago, he might have said something similar and yet much more gruesome. But this was a different lifetime and he was a transformed man.

Sansa arranged the wolf pelt until they covered her babe, then bent to kiss her brow as well. She edged quietly from the room and began her journey back to her own chambers. As she pushed the heavy wooden door closed behind her, a voice grumbled at her from her bed.

"You always take too long."

Sansa placed her candle on her night stand and began unbuttoning her night shift.

"You know I like to look in on them," she said, slipping the fabric off her shoulders and letting it pool on the ground. Sandor looked up at her with dark eyes as she slipped under their pelts and pressed herself against the hard line of his body, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

"It's not like they won't be there in the morning."

"You never know, my love," she murmured sleepily against his skin. "Things happen. We should know that better than anyone."

Sandor brought his arm around her shoulders and together they drifted off to sleep.


	2. Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa is pregnant with her first child. Just a playful moment between Lord and Lady Clegane.

Sansa shifted her weight from one swollen foot to the other, bracing one hand against the stone wall of the stairwell. She'd always known she'd have children, and she'd seen many women with child, but experiencing the large swell threatening to topple her with every step was something she hadn't expected. The swollen feet were another negative side effect of something she'd always imagined to be somewhat more … magical.

Carrying a child was one of many things that had let her down where her idealizations were concerned. Flowering for the first time was much messier than she'd been led to believe. The loss of her maidenhead had been even more messy and disappointing. While her husband had not been forceful and rough, he hadn't exactly been gentle either; she'd cried for some time, she remembered with shame, and her husband had had to comfort her after. But the pain of her first time had faded fairly quickly. The pains and annoyances of pregnancy, however, had remained with her for eight months now. As her belly grew she became more nauseated, her feet began to swell, she became disgusted by her favorite foods, and even the smallest things either made her cry or made her irrationally angry. She feared she would irritate Sandor to death if not for the overwhelming need to have him inside her nearly every night. It was exhausting and exasperating to feel all these things all the time. Now she couldn't see her feet and making it downstairs from her chambers was such a chore. She couldn't imagine having to go through this more than once.

Sansa let out a long sigh and traced a hand down the side of her belly as her unborn child gave a good hard kick just under her ribs. Sometimes she felt so bloated and big and beat-up from within, she wondered if there were five or ten children squirming around in there.

"Come now, little thing, mother needs to breathe," she murmured, standing taller to attempt to relieve the pressure. She slowly began descending the stairs once more, bracing a slim hand against the worn stones as she went. As she came around the last curve of the staircase, she saw her husband waiting for her at the bottom. Sometimes it was still strange seeing him with no armor, but the sword strapped around his waist was as familiar as ever. Now he was smirking at her, hand braced on his sword hilt, as she stopped to rest just steps from the bottom.

"I was coming up to see if you'd gotten out of bed yet," he said, "but then I heard you cursing the gods as you came down and figured I'd just wait for you here."

"How kind of you," she said flatly, placing her hand on his arm and easing herself off the final step. Even now, several years older, a few inches taller, she was dwarfed by his large body. "I've half a mind to stay down here until the babe is born. I wouldn't have to deal with those wretched stairs until I could see my feet again."

Sandor threw his head back and laughed. He'd been doing much more often of late, especially once he got used to the idea that they were with child. He'd been apprehensive at first-unsure if he was even fit to father any children-but he'd warmed to the idea as the months went by. Now his laugh was jovial, deep, gravelly. Sansa couldn't imagine a more wonderful sound.

"Your septa tried to have you do that when you first started complaining, if you'll recall."

"Yes, well, now I am inclined to accept that advice. I am fairly certain no children are ever this large before they're born."

"You're a little bird; of course our child seems large when compared with you." 

"Especially since it's your child," Sansa shot back, playfully swatting at his arm with her free hand. 

Sandor stopped suddenly and looked at her sideways. "If you wanted to try out the room to see if you like it, I would be happy to help," he offered slyly. Sansa raised an eyebrow knowingly.

"Always so thoughtful. Lead the way, Lord Clegane."


	3. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa recovers from giving birth to her first child.

Her limbs were heavy, mind foggy, as she came to. The room was stuffy; the fire warmed her eyes behind her eyelids, but it was an uncomfortable warmth. Her cheeks were burning. She wanted nothing more than to swim in the snow she knew was piled up outside her window. She wanted to cool her skin and ease the ache between her legs.

Sansa felt a tug at her breast and realized her septa was holding her babe as he suckled at her teat. The babe's head was topped with a curly wisp of red hair; it made her smile. The babe had the Tully hair, but what of the rest of the child? 

To her right a large figure was pacing. Sansa gingerly turned her head so she could look at her husband. He was pacing back and forth, gently rocking a small bundle in his arms. As he turned back toward her, she could see it was another babe with flame-red hair.

"There are two!" she cried hoarsely. The septa visibly jumped, startled, but Sandor turned toward her slowly, a faint smile curling his unscarred lip. 

"Two sons," he said, voice clearly resonating with pride. "Two strong sons." He perched himself beside her on the bed and turned the baby so she could see his face, smooth and pink and lacking any Tully features. Sandor watched as she lifted a hand to cup the baby's tiny face. "Maester Collen was worried you wouldn't last the first night. I told him my little bird had birthed two sons in one night; she would not fall to a fever." 

Sansa smiled sleepily. "How long have I been ill?"

"Nearly five days. Took more than one to bring the babes into the world." Sansa frowned.

"I certainly feel like it. I ache in places I didn't know were places," she joked. "I suppose I'll never know how my mother did all this five times. I'm afraid we'll have to limit ourselves to just the two children, my love."

Sandor gave a low chuckle and leaned forward to capture her lips with his. "What are you talking about?" he asked her with a smirk. "I've already planned five more."


	4. Loving

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Sandor share an intimate moment.

Sansa let him pull her against him so that her back was flush against his broad chest, coarsely furred and beaded with sweat. She could feel his cock, still slick with the product of their lovemaking, nestled against her ass. 

With a smirk she wriggled in his arms, teasing him. Sandor retaliated by giving her swollen breast a squeeze with his large hand.

"You're an insatiable little bird," he growled in her ear. He placed a kiss against her shoulder while his hand trailed from her breast to her belly, tracing the gradual swell there with his palm. She was only just starting to show that she was with child, but she was growing more and more every day. 

Sandor was fascinated by his wife and her transformation. He'd seen plenty of pregnant women in his lifetime, but he'd never seen the change happening before his eyes. She'd always been slim, but when she'd been pregnant with their twins he'd seen her slim frame grow and flesh out. When they'd lain together during that time he'd been able to tell the difference in her hips as he gripped them; they'd been fleshier, less bony. Her thighs, too, had thickened, and he certainly hadn't complained about that; they fit his hands perfectly, especially when she was sitting astride him. Her breasts had swelled with milk later in her pregnancy, and he enjoyed the weight of them in his palms.

After the twins were born and time passed, she did lose some of that weight, but her figure remained fuller than it had been before her pregnancy. Now that she was pregnant once more, however, she was gaining it back. To punctuate his thoughts, Sandor slipped a hand down and squeezed the flesh of her hip, growling his approval. Sansa chuckled.

"You know how much I hate it when you tease me like that," she chastised. "I feel enough like a cow without you pointing it out."

"I'm not teasing you, and you're no cow." To illustrate his point, he rolled his hips forward, pressing his hardening cock against her.

"For your sake I hope not," she said with a sly smile. She turned toward him abruptly, straddling his hips and resting against his length. "What would the smallfolk think if it got around that my husband becomes aroused at the thought of making love to a cow? They'd all be frightened for their cattle."

Sandor bellowed out a deep, throaty laugh. "I can assure you I wasn't thinking of fucking a cow." 

"Good. I would hate for you to get too distracted to enjoy this," she informed him, reaching between them and positioning herself so that he could slip inside her with ease.

Pregnancy also made his little bird an excitable creature; it was nearly impossible to satisfy her need to have him every night. But he wasn't about to complain about that, either.


	5. Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa watches her children practice their swordplay.

"Is it time yet?"

Sansa looked up from her needlepoint and watched her daughter for a moment, eying her eager face.

"It's been less than five minutes since you asked last, my darling," she teased her, pulling the needle through her fabric before placing the embroidery ring on the table. "Let me see your work."

Mareena hastily pressed her own little embroidery ring into her mother's hands and waited impatiently as Sansa inspected it. "You've done four stitches since I looked at this last," she sighed, holding the ring out for her daughter to take. "But a promise is a promise, I suppose. Grab your sword."

Mareena squealed in delight as she snatched the ring from Sansa's hands and ran for the door, bare feet pattering on the stones as she ran off down the hall. Sansa shook her head and stood, smoothing her dress over the bulge in her midsection. That girl was a handful. She reminded Sansa so much of her sister Arya. 

The boys were already in the small courtyard when she arrived. She watched from the top of the wooden staircase as Sandor adjusted Ned's grip on his wooden sword. Her husband has refused to allow a master-at-arms to teach their sons swordplay; he'd preferred to be the one to do it. "I want them to learn the proper way of it," he'd told her gruffly. When Mareena had first picked up one of her brothers' swords, she'd instantly fallen in love with the thought of being a knight and begged her papa to teach her, too. It had been months before Sansa was made aware that her only daughter was learning how to use a sword. She had not been pleased at first, but soon found that she couldn't bring herself to deny the girl anything. It was with much reluctance that she allowed Mareena to continue on, with one stipulation: she must still work toward mastering her needlepoint by stitching with her mother before she was allowed to practice with her sword. Mareena had only barely agreed to it, Sansa recalled with a smirk.

Mareena barreled past her, wooden sword clacking against the steps. Sansa couldn't help but smile as the girl knocked elbows with the boys so that she could stand between them. Her hair was braided down her back, red as a dying sun. Standing together, the three of them looked like little candles, all thin and pale and topped with flame.

Today they would be sparring. It filled Sansa with a sense of dread, worried that Mareena would get hurt. The oldest twin, Robb, insisted that he fight Mareena first; tiring her out would make it easier for Ned to beat her, he reasoned. Mareena only narrowed her eyes before raising her sword.

Sandor watched with amusement as Mareena and Robb began to spar. The sound of wooden swords clacking together filled the little courtyard. Sansa watched the duel with apprehension, Sandor swigged wine from a small flask, and Ned egged his brother on as Mareena gave Robb a run for his money. After blocking each other for several turns, Mareena finally slipped her sword in and gave Robb a good whack on the hand. He instantly dropped his sword and cried out.

"That hurt! Papa!" Mareena threw her head back and gave an incredibly derisive laugh for a six-year-old. 

Sandor rolled his eyes. "Wait until you get run through by a real sword, boy, then you'll know real pain," he grumbled. "Now pick up that sword and get back to it. Mareena's not done with you yet."

With a sour look at his sister, Robb swiped his sword up and gave a swift jab at her. She twisted away and he stumbled forward, unbalanced. Noticing the opening he left her, she snaked her way in and jabbed him in the abdomen with the blunt end of her sword. Robb dropped his weapon and grabbed his stomach, groaning. Mareena took the opportunity to push him back flat on his rear in the dirt.

Sansa snorted, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her smile. The others made no such effort to hide their mirth. Sandor threw his head back and laughed a deep, gravely belly laugh; Ned was doubled over in fits of laughter, grabbing his sides. 

"You better run!" Robb shouted, rolling to his knees. Unable to control her laughter, Mareena dropped her sword and took off, the boys hot on her trail as they all ran past Sansa and into the castle. Their laughter followed them, trailing off as they went deeper inside.

Sandor approached her with their discarded swords held in one large hand, his wine flask in the other. He settled the little swords against the wooden railing beside her before leaning in for a kiss.

"They're terrible," she teased. "Maybe this one will be calmer. It certainly doesn't make as big a racket inside me as the other three did."

Sandor smiled as he placed a hand on her belly, rubbing his thumb back and forth soothingly. 

"You love the chaos," he murmured, pressing his lips against hers once more. He felt her smiling her agreement.


	6. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tragedy strikes the Clegane household, and Sandor must comfort his daughter, teaching her a lesson in the process. Warning: This is NOT a very happy chapter.

The room was quiet. The only sound was the fire crackling in the brazier. Sandor had ordered the maester and septa to leave so that he and Sansa could grieve for their stillborn child alone.

Sansa cried silently in her bed as Sandor stood by the fire, the tiny baby boy held in his arms. The baby was silent. He'd never taken a single breath, never let out a scream, never suckled at his mother's teat. He'd been born lifeless and gray.

The maester had told them the baby came early; at least a moon's turn, if not more. This babe was the third they'd lost since Mareena was born. The other pregnancies had failed early on and ended in bloodstained furs and little lumps of tissue that should have been babies but would never get the chance. This time they'd been sure that they would finally have another addition to their little family. 

"I would like to hold him," Sansa said weakly, throat thick with tears. Sandor gently laid the small body in the circle of her arms and watched as she tucked his little blanket around him more tightly and smoothed a hand over his dark hair. "He looks like you," she told him with a sad smile. "He has your face and even your hair."

A strangled cry came from the door, which had been left ajar, followed by the sound of feet scurrying away down the hall. 

"That sounded like Mareena," Sansa murmured.

"I'll go see to her." Sandor placed a gentle kiss on her forehead before leaving.

He found Mareena in her room. She'd buried herself under her furs and was sobbing uncontrollably. Her dolls were scattered about the room, along with many of her dresses and even her wooden sword. Clearly everything she could get her hands on had been thrown in grief.

Sandor worked to extract her from her furs, and when she was uncovered she threw her arms around him and sobbed into his chest. He hugged her tightly to him and dropped a kiss atop her head.

"It's all my fault!" Mareena wailed. "It's all my fault he's dead. If I hadn't made mother fall over he wouldn't be dead!"

It took Sandor a moment to realize what the girl meant. He vaguely recalled Sansa telling him that she'd taken a fall down a step or two and landed on her rump. The children, she told him, had been playing a game and ran past her, causing her to lose her balance and fall. She assured him that she properly chastised them, had gotten the maester to check that all was well with their unborn child, and had laughed off the experience entirely.

Sandor set Mareena down on her feet and kneeled in front of her. She was grasping her favorite wolf doll in her hand. He could see she had tried to stitch closed a little tear in the wolf's side, but stuffing was still poking through the uneven seem.

"I was going to give my baby brother or sister my wolf to protect them," she cried, rubbing one eye with the back of her hand, "but now I killed him!" 

"Little bird, stop your crying," Sandor demanded, albeit gently. "I'm going to teach you a lesson I learned when I was about your age. Sometimes things happen. Bad things. And they happen for no reason and at no fault of your own. They may make you sad or angry for a very long time. But there is nothing you can do to change what has happened, no matter how badly you may want to. You do the best with what you're given and you move on. This is one of those things. You did not cause this. It is just one of those terrible things that happen that make you sad. We'll all grieve together for a while, and in the future maybe you'll have a new little brother or sister you can cherish all the more for knowing the death of this one."

Mareena and stopped crying and was looking up at him with a trembling lower lip and ruddy, tear-stained cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy from all her crying. 

"Can I still give him my wolf? So he can be protected in the crypt?"

Sandor stood and scooped Mareena up in his arms, hugging her to his chest. "If that's what you want, little bird, then that's what we'll do."

By the time they made it back to Sansa's chambers, Mareena was asleep in his arms. Her wolf was dangling from one hand, in danger of falling. He set her down on the bed beside Sansa, where she immediately nestled into her side. Sansa wrapped her free arm around her daughter's shoulder, the other still cradling their infant son.

"Is the poor thing alright?" Sansa asked. Sandor shook his head as he sank into the septa's vacated chair beside the bed.

"No. But she will be."


	7. Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mareena makes a decision that could potentially anger her mother.

Mareena peered at herself in the surface of the little pond, looked at the red leaves surrounding her face in the water, and frowned. She reached a hand up and tugged at her long red locks. Ever since she'd met her aunt Arya, she'd been unsettled by her own reflection. Arya had short hair, a tiny body; she wore tunics and pants and sparred with her nephews in the training yard. She was so unlike any other woman Mareena had ever seen. Mareena herself was just like her mother: curvy waist, now that she had flowered; long, sunset-colored hair; dresses and needlepoint and manners. 

She didn't want all that. She wanted her sword. She wanted pants. She wanted to be free like her aunt.

Mareena wrapped her fingers around the dinner knife she'd discarded in the grass and pulled a lock of her hair forward so she could look at it. She's still look like her mother–everyone always told her she was beautiful, and she did like hearing it–but she'd be more like Arya, look a little bit more like her. Maybe she'd be able to wield a sword without disapproving looks from her mother and without teasing from her brothers.

She took that lock of hair in a firm grip and sheared the knife clean through it. She dropped the long strands in the water and watched them sit weightlessly on the surface. She grabbed another fistful of hair and sawed that off too, adding it to the rest, repeating these steps until there was no hair lying against her neck, no hair long enough to brush away from her face and behind her ears. Mareena dropped the knife and scraped her fingers through her newly shorn locks, reveling in the second it took to reach the ends. Her mother was going to be furious.

+++++

Sansa's eyes flitted up as Mareena entered the dining hall. She was completely prepared to chastise her for being very late for dinner. What she wasn't prepared for was that Mareena may look like a son rather than a daughter. Her spoon clattered into her nearly empty soup bowl as her eyes finally drank in her daughter as the young girl slipped into her chair beside her brothers. Robb and Ned were also looking at her wide-eyed and speechless.

"What have you done with your hair?" Sansa demanded, rising from her seat to get a better look at Mareena's butchery.

"It was heavy and got in the way," Mareena responded, pulling Robb's abandoned bowl toward her so she could see what it contained. She wrinkled her nose at it. "So I cut it off. Even Aunt Arya said she kept her hair short because it was easier to fight that way."

"And why exactly do you feel it's important for your hair to not get in your way when you fight? Do you expect to be getting into life-threatening sword fights, Mareena?" 

The hall was silent. Sandor was sitting beside her chuckling to himself. Sometimes his wife reminded him of her mother.

"If the girl wants to cut her hair, make no fuss about it. Hair grows back," he said, sipping wine from his horn.

"She looks like a boy!" Ned teased, mussing her hair and laughing as she slapped his arm away. 

"I can still look like a girl! Aunt Arya looks like a girl! Why else would Gendry kiss her all the time?" she said angrily, punching her brother hard in the shoulder. He only laughed harder.

Sansa sighed and collapsed back into her hair, shaking her head. 

"What am I going to do with that child?" she asked, clearly exasperated. Sandor laughed again and drained his horn.

"You do nothing and let her run her course. You didn't have that kind of freedom at her age; you should let her enjoy it while she can."

Sansa looked over at her husband with one eyebrow raised. He met her gaze with a knowing look.

"You and your wisdom," she murmured after a long moment, turning her attention back to her children.


	8. Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The twins mark themselves as Sandor's sons and learn a lesson in the process.

Maester Collen inspected the twins' cheeks, turning their heads this way and that. They each had a thick, long, steady gash reaching from his left temple, across the curve of his cheek, to the corner of his mouth. They'd wiped away the blood, smears of red still reaching for their necks, but the gashes gaped open, ready to be cleaned and sewn.

"Do I want to know how this happened?" the old man asked, moving to his table and sifting through bottles of liquid ointment. The boys exchanged uneasy looks. Collen found his preferred medicine and sat back down in his chair, indicating with his free hand that they should also sit. "Well?" he prompted. He reached for a small box on the shelf next to him and pulled from within it a needle and silky black thread.

"It didn't … happen, exactly" Robb said slowly. Collen looked up at them, confused. The boys had never been so solemn in his seventeen years of looking after them. They looked like their father and had their mother's hair, but they had never had either parent's seriousness. The maester reached a hand up and began to wipe away the remaining blood on Robb's cheek. 

"We did it to ourselves," Ned admitted. "We rode down to the village for the afternoon. Mother's nameday is soon, and we wanted to buy her a gift." Ned paused his story to watch Maester Collen thread the silk through the eye of the needle and poise the point of it over Robb's ruined cheek. "While we were getting our horses back from the stable there, we heard a man from the south telling stories about papa. Horrible stories about when he was at King's Landing. He-he made jokes about papa making bastard children with a Stark."

Ned hung his head and went silent. Collen was applying ointment over Robb's stitches. They sat in silence for several minutes as the maester finished dressing Robb's wound and turned to Ned to begin cleaning him up as well.

"Did that shame you, embarrass you?" Maester Collen asked finally, pulling Ned's chin up so he could see the gash on his cheek.

"No," Robb told him firmly. "We've never been ashamed of papa. It's not the first time we've heard those stories, and it won't be the last. We … we weren't even recognized by the Southroner. He seemed so knowledgeable about everything else regarding our family, but he didn't even recognize Sandor Clegane's 'bastard' sons." 

Robb gave a derisive snicker and shook his head.

"The bastard joked about papa's scars, about his having to force mother on account of his face, so we gave him some scars of his own."

Maester Collen's hand stilled, needle halfway threaded down Ned's face. "Oh boys, you didn't," he said softly, looking Ned in the eye. "Tell me you didn't." Ned squirmed uncomfortably, averting his eyes from the maester.

"We didn't hurt him much. We gave him the scars we gave ourselves … three times over. We told him now he had the same look as the Hound and his bastard children." Robb and Ned gave each other a conspiratorial grin.

Maester Collen sighed as he began applying ointment to Ned's sutures. "These will scar badly, you know." The twins nodded, solemnity returning.

"Papa shouldn't have to bear the burden of scars alone," they told their maester.

"Well he certainly won't be the talk of the town for a while, not while you two are off assaulting people for their opinions," Collen quipped, rolling up his excess silk thread and replacing it in his box. He eyed the twins warily; they did look a little sorry for their actions. "It wasn't right to include someone else in your prideful antics. Wars are started over much more trivial things." He rose from his chair and began ushering them from his chambers. "You'll see me every day to apply ointment to prevent the wounds from festering. You've done enough damage to your faces, you shouldn't make it worse. For now you need to justify your actions to your mother. Tell her the whole story. If you're going to act like men in the village, you're going to take consequences like men, even if it means a scolding from Lady Sansa. Now get to it."

Maester Collen watched them trudge down the spiral staircase, heads down, shoulders slouched. They looked the picture of guilt. Maybe that would help them when their mother got a hold of them.


	9. Change

Sansa was wringing her hands nervously, unable to touch her meal, when she noticed Mareena sitting in her usual place, slouched down, poking at her stew with a spoon. Her hair was a mess; the pearlescent pins Sansa and the septa had artfully arranged in her red-orange hair had gone missing since their meeting that morning. While her dress was stained with dirt and badly wrinkled, Sansa found comfort in the fact that she hadn't changed into pants.

Sansa glanced at her husband, who was hunched over his drinking horn, a sour look on his face. The twins were absent; Sandor had banished them from his sight days ago, and they'd been making themselves scarce ever since.

Sansa recalled with embarrassment the shouting match that had ensued when Sandor first saw his sons' self-inflicted wounds. Sandor and Mareena had been in the training yard at the time, and Sansa had been able to hear the shouting all the way up in her tower chambers. Mareena left the yard to find her mother, and they listened from above while Sandor cursed his sons' foolishness with more colorful language than Mareena had ever heard.

Days later, Sandor was still sullen and cross, which is how Mareena's suitor found them that morning. A lord who had made his family's fortune through trade in the south brought his eldest son to meet Lord and Lady Clegane and possibly woo their only daughter. Sansa had liked them well enough, but Sandor and Mareena were thick as thieves when it came to the issue of Mareena's marriage. They both did their best to dissuade the merchant and his son from seeking her hand in marriage, although Sansa was convinced that Sandor's dour mood played the biggest part. He'd insulted them at every opportunity and only laughed when they took offense.

By noon Mareena had challenged the future lordling to a duel, promising him that she would agree to marry him if he won. Thinking nothing of it, the boy entered into the duel with expectations that Mareena trampled within moments. His father had been so ashamed that by mid afternoon, the two were out of sight of Winterfell, horses pointed south.

"I suppose I'll have to send out more letters now," Sansa said to cut the silence; her voice rang out around the empty dining hall. "That's three matches in as many months that you've run off."

"I don't understand why I have to get married. Knights don't get married or have children." Mareena stabbed at a chunk of lamb with her soup spoon.

"You're not a knight, you're a lady," Sansa reminded her. "It is your duty to get married and have children. I was two years younger than you are now when I was to be wed to the king-"

"And you were miserable. You'd think you wouldn't want to inflict such cruelties on your own child," Sandor grumbled into his wine. Sansa flushed.

"I never had a choice. Mareena does."

Mareena stood abruptly, hands clenched into fists.

"But I don't have a choice, mother! I don't want this! I never wanted this! I may not ever be a real knight, but in my heart I'm more a knight than a lady. Aunt Arya has Gendry and even they aren't married! Just because I'm your only daughter doesn't mean I have to be just like you." Mareena gathered up her wrinkled skirts and stormed from the dining room. Sansa dimly noticed that her feet were bare and filthy, and she wore breeches beneath her dress.

"What are we going to do with them?" Sandor sighed, draining his cup with large gulps. This was a question they asked each other often. Sansa pressed a hand to her burning cheek.

"We're going to make things right. You need to apologize to the boys." 

Sandor grunted at this. "I have nothing to apologize for. They were foolish. They need to face the consequences of their actions." He looked down at his wife, the unscarred side of his mouth pulled down into a deep frown. His eyes were uncharacteristically sorrowful. "They don't understand what it's like to live with a marked face, always identifiable. One day they'll hear laughs and taunts directed at their scars, and their tempers are going to get them killed because of it. They're foolish and hotheaded, more so even than I. They need to learn what it is that they've done."

Sansa reached up and placed a hand against his scarred cheek, pulling his face closer to her own. "Who is more capable of teaching them than their own father? For all their years, they are still boys who need their father. Make peace with them." She kissed him gently before pulling away and standing. "I suppose now I must take my own advice and see to Mareena. Were she less like my sister, this whole ordeal would go much more smoothly." 

+++++

Sansa found her daughter in her room, wrestling her dress over her head. Underneath she was wearing a sleeveless white shift with russet brown pants. When the dress finally came free, she hurled it to the foot of her bed and then grabbed her old wooden sword. Mareena stood there, head bowed and sword in hand. 

Sansa stepped into the room, gliding quietly to the bed and sinking down on the edge. Mareena looked over at her from where she stood, and Sansa could see her knuckles were white where she gripped the sword hilt.

"It's dangerous, wanting to be a knight," Sansa told her softly, without preamble; Mareena was a straight forward person, and Sansa knew she needed to be direct if she were to get through to her. "My brothers died fighting. My father died … because of a knight, because of fighting. My mother, even. For several years I thought Arya had been killed by knights." She paused, her mind going to her husband and his time in King's Landing. "I've seen knights used as puppets for evil things. I'd always thought they were such noble people, you know, until I went to King's Landing and saw for myself the way things really are."

Sansa looked up at her daughter. Her grip on the sword handle had slackened. She looked more disappointed than angry now.

"I know you look up to Arya. I know you want to be like her. But my sister is such a … special case, Mareena. She was shaped by things beyond her control. You have choices. Maybe not as many as you like, but that's the way of things. It's always been the way of things. You don't have to marry now, right this very minute, but it is something you will have to do, and you will have to think about it seriously whether you want to or not. You can make your own decisions regarding your future husband or I can make them for you."

Sansa stood from the bed and folded her hands in front of her, looking down at Mareena. Her eyes were sparkling with tears she fought to hold back and her lips were pressed into a fine line.

"But what about you?" Mareena choked out. "In the end you got to choose what you wanted. You got to marry for love, no one pressed you to marry some stranger. It's not fair!"

Sansa gazed down at her daughter thoughtfully, lips turned down into a frown. 

"I suppose the difference here is that at that point, there was no one in my family left who could object to my marriage. And no, I didn't have a choice. There was never a choice. I always wanted to be a wife and mother. Not for the right reasons, at first, but later, when … things changed."

"But I've never wanted it, never!"

"You're fifteen!" Sansa said sternly. "You don't know what you want. You may think you do, but things change. You'll change."

Sansa stepped around her daughter and made for the door, pausing before she left.

"We can come to some sort of compromise, Mareena, I'm sure of it. There's no reason this should end in tears. Get some rest; we'll talk it all through in the morning."

With that, Sansa swept from the room, leaving Mareena to her tears.

+++++

Sansa found her husband undressing in their chambers

"Foolish little shits," he grumbled as she entered. "They're too soft for their own good."

Sansa smiled. It sounded like Sandor had made up with the boys. She slipped up behind him as he was untying his trousers and snaked her arms around his torso, pressing her cheek to the strong muscles of his back.

"Mareena said something to me," she murmured. "During her fit she brought up the unfairness of her life. Why should she be forced to marry when I got to marry for love?"

"Aye, and she's right." Sandor told her, patting her hand. "You are being unfair. After all that you went through in King's Landing being betrothed to that fucking boy, you'd think you'd have learned something." Sansa lowered her arms from around his waist as he turned to face her. "It didn't turn out right for you. All those expectations you had going into King's Landing … nothing but shit. The right thing is to let her be. She'll never be a knight or anything of the sort, and she knows that. But there's no reason we can't let her forge her own path. You did the same, after all." 

Sandor rid himself of his trousers and climbed into bed. Sansa slowly stripped herself of her own garments, deep in thought. When she finally climbed into bed, Sandor pulled her close and pressed his lips to the shell of her ear.

"You can't make her take the path your parents intended for you to take. She can't follow in Arya's footsteps either, thanks be to that. She'll make her own way in life, we'll just have to trust her." He smiled against her skin and settled a kiss to her check. "She's more like you than you think."


End file.
